By Kurtis Alexander | July 25, 2024 | San Francisco Chronicle
The dams, collectively known as the Klamath Hydroelectric Project, were built between 1911 and 1962 to provide electricity.
The nation’s largest dam-removal project is moving along faster than planned, with the demolition work on the Klamath River near the California-Oregon border due to wrap up as soon as next month — and salmon expected to make their long-awaited return soon after.
Following months of blasting and drilling, three large hydroelectric dams slated for dismantling this year are close to being cleared out of the river channel. A smaller fourth dam was taken out last fall.
Officials at the Klamath River Renewal Corp., which is managing the $500 million deconstruction effort about a six-hour drive from San Francisco, credit a combination of good weather and speedy crews for putting the bulk of the work on track to finish about a month and a half before their Oct. 15th deadline.
“Us being ahead of schedule is all the better for protecting the river and for protecting the fish,” said Ren Brownell, spokeswoman for the Renewal Corp.
The dams are being removed in a bid to restore the Klamath’s natural flows and, in doing so, revive the region’s fish and wildlife, notably salmon. Considered sacred by tribes and fundamental to fishermen, salmon have plummeted in part because the dams have blocked access to hundreds of miles of waterways where the fish historically spawned. The hope is that removing the dams and opening up new spawning habitat will lead to more chinook salmon — as much as 80 percent more, models show.
Managers of the project had planned to get the dams out before large numbers of chinook began migrating up the river from the ocean this fall, ensuring the fish could swim farther upstream and begin to reclaim their old home. Having the dams out ahead of schedule means that even early arriving fall-run chinook, and ultimately more fish, will be able to get to the soon-to-be-accessible waters.
“That first fish that makes it past the dam footprints: symbolically, it’s huge,” said Toz Soto, senior biologist and fisheries program manager for the Karuk Tribe, which long advocated for the river restoration and is now helping with it. “It’s something that a lot of us thought we would never see in our lifetimes.”
The fall run of chinook salmon is the river’s biggest run, contributing to the diets and rituals of tribes as well as the state’s commercial and recreational fishing seasons. Both seasons were canceled this year, and last, because of low fish numbers. The Klamath also hosts other runs of chinook, including the once dominant spring run, as well as runs of coho salmon, steelhead and lamprey, all of which are likely to benefit from the new upstream waters.
How far upstream the incoming fish will go this year remains the big question.
Scientists expect that the historic habitat of salmon won’t be fully repopulated for a decade or longer. The fish generally have a three-year life cycle — they’re born in the river, spend most of their lives at sea and return to the river to reproduce. Going forward, each new generation is expected to move higher into the watershed until it’s flush with fish.
Since the early 1900s when dam construction began, the fish have been limited to the lower part of the 250-mile Klamath, denying them of nearly half of the river’s main stem and countless tributaries, totaling more than 300 miles of waterways, and reducing their spawning capacity.
Juvenile coho salmon are released in April by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife into the Klamath River in Siskiyou County. The agency is working to boost salmon numbers on the river by raising and releasing hatchery fish.
The newly opened-up waters will extend from Northern California’s Siskiyou County into the mountains and high desert of southern Oregon. These rivers and creeks not only offer more habitat but colder, spring-fed water that salmon require, particularly as the climate continues to warm.
“To rebuild the stocks, we need patience,” said Damon Goodman, Klamath director for the conservation group California Trout, which is also helping with the river restoration. “We’re digging our way out of a hole we’ve dug for 100 years, but we’ll eventually have this more diverse portfolio of fish that will better adapt to climate extremes and have more abundant runs.”
Goodman as well as Soto with the Karuk Tribe are part of a coalition of scientists from the federal government, state governments in California and Oregon, tribes, universities, and environmental groups that is preparing to monitor the returning fish.
Scientists and other supporters of the Klamath River dam removal meet in the footprint of the former Iron Gate Reservoir in Siskiyou County to discuss the return of salmon to waters long blocked by dams.
The group will use sonar, basically fancy fish-finders, to detect fish moving through the former dam sites. They’ll also catch a sample of the fish with tangle nets to identify them, then return them to the water with some equipped with radio tags to track where they go.
“It’s a pretty comprehensive project and you need a lot of coordination,” said Bob Pagliuco, marine habitat resource specialist for the National Marine Fisheries Service, who has helped formulate the monitoring plan.
While Pagliuco and others are optimistic about fish repopulating new areas, a number of obstacles await upstream, which scientists will be closely watching. These include two large dams that aren’t being removed, though they have fish ladders; the sprawling Upper Klamath Lake in Oregon that fish must cross to get to the higher parts of the watershed; and municipal development along waterways that can affect water quality and water depths.
“We’re going to learn a lot here in the coming year and the next few years,” Soto said.
Until late August or early September, though, the focus remains on dam demolition.
This article originally appeared in the July 25, 2024, issue in the San Francisco Chronicle. Photo by Carlos Avila Gonzalez.